Baku: Over 11,000 Azerbaijani citizens have been officially registered with HIV since the first case was detected in 1987.

According to Azeri-Press News Agency, Gunel Babayeva, Head of the Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the Republican AIDS Center of the Ministry of Health, reported that, from 1987 to the end of the second quarter of 2025, a total of 11,058 HIV cases have been documented in the country.

It was noted that 70% of these cases are men, while 30% are women. Efforts to combat HIV in Azerbaijan have been highlighted as a result of targeted, comprehensive anti-epidemic and preventive measures implemented among high-risk groups vulnerable to HIV infection, as well as the general population. These measures have positioned Azerbaijan among the countries with the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region.

Within the framework of the antiretroviral treatment program, which has been in place since 2006, more than ten thousand people living with HIV are currently under continuous monitoring and treatment. Antiretroviral therapy provided to these individuals not only prevents the progression of the infection but also reduces its infectiousness. As the viral load in the blood of individuals receiving treatment is reduced to undetectable levels, the risk of HIV transmission from infected persons to others is minimized.